'Twas the day before Christmas...

It was either "Twas the day before Christmas" or "De Plow! De Plow!" I knew I should have met Obama in Hawaii for the holidays, sigh, oh well.

Some years are just a little more 'interesting' around here than others, and this one was mildly interesting. Mildly panicky, too. I'll try to outline the day - the plans I made, and the plans the Universe gave me.

Me, I planned on a nice, calm day, baking up the rest of the treats I wanted to gift. We knew snow was predicted, but I'd cleaned out the porch and tucked the snow blower in it and even had gas on hand (! - that may have tipped off the Universe I was getting too complacent).

First thing on my list was to bake up some Springleri (anise) cookies; Sera's favorite and they'd set overnight. Okay, so these came out tasting excellent but a little strange. Figured out that morning around 6 a.m. (damn, the places my mind goes when it has a few seconds) the cause for the thin cookie dough was I used large eggs instead of medium this year. Since the cookies are mostly eggs and flour, and since I was 'for once being proper' and stuck to the measurements even when I thought it could use a little more flour... They're thin like pancakes instead of a drop cookie. Like I said, they taste excellent, and I learned I shouldn't ignore those quiet nudgings and fly on 'gut feeling' more.

I didn't get on with baking them until 8:00, which is when I figured out somebody (ahem, was Sera, not me) left the oven on all night. The house was rather cool - not drastic, but cool - so I turned the thermostat up. And the furnace didn't respond.

Okay. That qualifies as reason to trigger panic, put nerves on high alert, and simultaneously calm self while trying to mentally trouble shoot potential causes. Being as I'm not a 'furnace person', the hardest part is maintaining calm. I hit the breaker switch, furnace kicked on and off. Hmm.

Especially on Christmas eve under snow when a repairman would be challenged to get out here long enough to tweak some durn thingy and charge a few hundred dollars. No panic, twitch, no panic.

So I baked bread.

I'd planned on baking bread before Sera got up and started baking pies and things, so it seemed to make sense to get the bread in the oven before I got too involved in furnace-thinking. It was a bit reassuring, because part of mind was analyzing the situation, recognizing we still had power, and the other space heater was in the shed - if needed. Also mentally reviewed my very short list of friends that might have clue on what to check. (This is the kind of call my dad used to get.)

It seemed the only thing different in the furnace's world between night and morn was the snow, so I figured the least I could do was get on the roof and see if the air vent or something was buried. I also tossed out the top furnace filter which was pretty plugged up; a year ago I'd bought 4 cheap filters, stacked them together in the furnace, and as they plug up, toss out the top one. I won't say how many are still left in the stack, but it is more than two... I know, should stay aware of these things.

I got dressed for Outside and left Sera to get the bread out when it was done (jars on the '2', loaves on the '5'). Since I was outside, and it wasn't terribly cold, especially in snow pants and down coat and 3 layers of gloves and such, and because it was going to be needed sooner or later anyway, I figured I may as well run the snow blower before going roof-side. Only take about 15 minutes.

Except halfway through the drive, the snow blower choked up. It was easy to find the problem - one of the rubber blades had broke loose on one end and wrapped around the other blade. 'K, there be another one to fix - back to the shovel, put the snow blower in the living room so I could work on it later in relative comfort.

(PAUSE - join Val in searching for Tilly-dog since the gate wasn't closed and Jake-dog had come back from where they're not supposed to be. Run up the road through the six inches of snow on a dog-search, return to house - and find Tilly on her bed under the table, which is where I should have looked first.)

Up to the roof, nothing too spectacular, but I brushed off the vents and tapped them a bit, and and gave them an encouraging pat.

Get inside, remove 80% of the clothing, check the furnace - nothing. But the house smelled good.

Called Pete, who didn't answer. This was a little worrying, in that a co-worker of Sera's had a brother-in-law commit suicide a week ago, and Pete happens to be one of his brother-in-laws and the last time we'd seen Pete he was having a rough time. (Called later, and he's fine. I didn't think he'd off himself, but then again, we all have breaking points and 'all hell coulda been breaking loose' in his world.)

Called Bill. I'd invited him to Christmas dinner when I first thought it'd be a good idea a week ago and thawed the turkey, but this call was to pick his brains about furnaces. He talked about igniters and such, lovely kind of conversation I prefer not to engage in, but Sera had tweaked the thermostat buttons again as we chatted, and lo!

The furnace began heating up again.

I took a break before fetching a handful of tools and dissecting a portion of the snow blower. Got the rubber piece out... hmm. Best quick fix seemed to be drilling matching holes for the bolts in the other side of the rubber and seeing if that'd work. It did.

More snow, plow went by around 2:30, and I figured I should test the snow blower. It worked... halfway. I think this time it doesn't like the gas. But pulling the darned starter (the electric start seems to be growing weary of me) - I'm sure there's a term for this cable that's eluding me - about dislocated my shoulder so I went back to shoveling.

Sera was baking in the meantime so wasn't able to get out sooner to help, and once the drive was clear, she headed to Matt's to spend the night so she wouldn't get snowed in here. (Not her plan, either, just the way it worked out.)

I was finally able to get back to my list of what I planned to do, including cleaning. It made for a late night, but the vertical blinds we've been waiting to see who'd break down and clean - got cleaned.

Christmas morn, I figured best thing to do first was shovel off the new snow, then get on with the baking. We had a late dinner planned, so I had time. I can admit it was pleasantly quiet, not terribly cold, and I didn't really mind.

Imagine my delight when I pulled the thawed turkey out of the refrig and realized a very large pool of blood had formed overnight, across racks and drawers. So I cleaned the refrig.

Like I said, it was 'interesting'.